


fight so dirty but your love's so sweet

by jaeministie



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Blood, Enemies to Lovers, Existential Crisis, M/M, Manipulation, Mentions of Death, Sort Of, Spies & Secret Agents, Violence, a tiny bit of nsfw, who doesn't like an enemies to lovers trope?
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-14
Updated: 2020-02-16
Packaged: 2021-02-27 15:14:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 18,417
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22259293
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jaeministie/pseuds/jaeministie
Summary: Jeno and Jaemin are secret agents, forced to team up despite a mutual hatred. Their world travels are packed with ambushes, blood and hearts beating faster every time their eyes meet.
Relationships: Lee Jeno/Na Jaemin, implied markhyuck - Relationship
Comments: 8
Kudos: 79





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> hope you will enjoy this new fic!  
> it should be in three parts, each of them with 10k words.  
> i will probably add an epilogue if everything goes well!
> 
> enjoy ~

Until he was seventeen, Jaemin thought that nothing apart from the training centre existed. He had been told that his parents had abandoned him and that someone saved him from death by sending him there. 

Of course, that person must not have known that the buildings in the middle of nowhere, in a recluse part of the country where the winters were deadly and the summers were brutally hot, belonged to nothing else but the secret services. It was a training centre for future spies, trained from birth to become deadly weapons at the service of states. 

Having skilled agents was a key element in the troubled world setting, but having those same agents who had never known anything else but training, how to get information, how to seduce and how to kill was an indulgence many would pay a lot for. 

Jaemin had also been told upon arrival that nobody ever had to know his real name and that from the day he entered the centre, he would have to go as Nana. 

When he arrived, Jaemin had been five years old, and he started real training at seven. Children who got into the centre would have to first prove themselves intellectually. As Jaemin’s first supervisor said, ‘strength can be easily acquired, but intelligence is a rare good’. 

The first two years had been a blur, but Jaemin remembered taking numerous language classes, as well as doing a lot of puzzles, logical games and such. Many children failed the first part of the training, and Jaemin recalled that three-quarters of the children he had been with for those two years had been spent away, failing to fit the standards required by the centre. 

His real training had started from then, with the same languages classes but with the addition of a lot of physical training. His training took most of the day, and the years went on this way. Jaemin saw a lot of other trainees break, dying or trying to escape. The ones who didn’t perform well at the monthly exams would disappear, and nobody really knew what happened to them. 

  
This mystery only meant that they all had to train hard, whatever the pain or the consequences. 

__

  
**Paris**

Jaemin had never seen a place like this before. The hotel walls were covered in what seemed to be expensive carpets, and the floor was so clean that the brunette could see the reflection of the chandeliers at each step he took. 

Opulence. This was the word that came to Jaemin when he glanced at the décor around him. 

He was in one of the many palaces of Paris, and if his supervisors hadn’t told him about such a place, he would never have believed it existed.

It had been a year since he had been officially recognized as an agent, after more than ten years of training. He had been sent to a few countries already, but it was the brunette’s first time in such a luxurious place.

Lost in his thoughts, Jaemin realized he had reached one of the many elevators of the hotel. 

His mission was easy, he had been told, but it was of capital matter. The man he had been sent to kill was a controversial politician, becoming too embarrassing for his own country and seeking some exile in France. Said politician lived in one of the hotel suites and, apparently, did fear for his life as one tall bodyguard guarded his room. 

“Lost your way?” the bodyguard nudged the brunette who was coming his way. 

Jaemin did not even bother to answer and grabbed the pieces of glass thread he had in the pocket of his vest. In a swift move, he jumped on the man, tightening the thread on his throat as hard as he could. Jaemin took support on the wall behind him, tightening the thread until he felt hot liquid run on his fingers.

The good thing with that technique was that it was soundless and that the results were guaranteed. The bodyguard fell on the floor, dead, blood dripping out of his deeply cut throat.

Jaemin wiped his blood-covered hands on his vest, feeling the nauseating metallic smell invade his nostrils. Grabbing the key of the room in the dead bodyguard’s vest, he opened the door. 

The suite was pitch black, which wasn’t surprising considering it was almost three in the morning. Jaemin waited a minute, his eyes slowly adjusting to the darkness while feeling the wall in the search of a light switch. After a few seconds, he pressed the first switch he found. 

He was faced with one of the fanciest room he had ever seen, with golden beads on the chandeliers and bright red velvet bed duvet. More than that, he was faced with said politician, in bed with what seemed to be a prostitute. 

Both of them were naked and had their eyes both filled with sleep and shock when they saw the male in front of them.

The woman opened her mouth, probably to scream, but Jaemin was faster. He shot her with the handgun he hid in his pocket, her blood tainting the carpets and the white sheets. The prostitute fell on the floor with a thud. 

“What is it … what is it that you want”, the politician seemed terrified, and his eyes were starring at the door as if to wait for someone to come. 

Jaemin got closer to him, sitting on the edge of the bed. The duvet felt so nice when he let his hand wander in it, eyeing the terrified man next to him. 

“Me? Nothing,” he answered back, resting his elbows on his knees. “However, it seems that you are quite a wanted person.” 

Upon hearing those words, the man became pale, paler than he had been when Jaemin entered and seemed to be thinking at a quick pace. Jaemin was used to this, seeing compromised people realize they were fucked and that they had been caught. He felt nothing when he saw the man’s pleading glance. 

“I can explain,” he started, grabbing the robe on the side of his pillow, probably to cover his naked self. Jaemin sighed. They all always wanted to explain themselves, as if the brunette had any saying in their fate. He didn’t even know the exact details of why this man had to be shot, except for the fact that he had been deemed as a traitor for his country. 

Jaemin could have shot him as soon as he had entered the room, but he had instructions. He first had to get names, and details about several of his activities. Without these details, killing him would be worthless, and Jaemin knew better than to fail a mission of this importance. He would be the one cold dead if he failed. 

Suddenly, Jaemin heard the sound of a handgun being loaded, and when he raised his eyes from the duvet to his victim, he had taken out a pistol from his robe. The brunette barely had time to throw himself on the floor; hearing gunshots a couple of seconds after his body hit the ground, face first. 

He could have taken a couple of seconds to take in the shock, but he knew better than just lay on the floor at the man’s – who wasn’t as dumb as he looked- mercy. Jaemin rolled and managed to hide behind one of the expensive-looking chairs, feeling the bullets pierce more and more the thick material. He knew that he couldn’t risk shooting too, at least not in this precarious situation, because it would fatally reach the man and his task would be ruined. He just hid there, waiting for the man to run out of bullets. 

The chair Jaemin was hiding behind was a very ugly state when the pistol made a sound indicating it was empty. 

“Are you done?” Jaemin sighed. He got up and pointed his gun towards the man. A quick check of his surroundings and Jaemin realized that first, the man didn’t seem to have any other hidden weapons but that, second, the sounds of the shots had probably been heard and it would not be long before dozens of accomplices would barge in. 

He grabbed the man’s arm and dragged him with difficulty on the floor of the bathroom where any sound will be silenced by the thick walls. The man tried to struggle in Jaemin’s hold, but the brunette pointed his gun to his throat and threw him on the cold floor. 

“Who do you work with? What are you up to”? The brunette faced his victim, his gun still pointing to his throat. The man nudged the male and spat on his face, to Jaemin’s biggest disgust. The brunette whipped his soiled cheek before raising an eyebrow to the politician. “Not smart,” he whispered, before lowering the gun to the man’s leg and shooting without a single glance to which part of the limb he had been aiming. 

The man screamed in pain, thick red blood covering the floor of the bathroom and Jaemin’s hands too. 

“I said, who’s helping you in this? I won’t be very patient,” Jaemin felt time running out, and a faint sound a couple of floors underneath indicated that indeed, he’d rather be fast now. 

“I … I work alone,” the man lied, screeching in pain as Jaemin pressed his knee on his exploded leg. “I promise,” he screamed, becoming paler and paler.

“ I know you’re lying,” Jaemin muttered, aiming for his other leg and shooting right in the muscle and the bone. An inhumane sound came out of the man’s throat and Jaemin grabbed his neck to force the man to face him. “I need names,” his tone was ice cold, contrasting with the burning hot blood covering him. 

The politician seemed to ponder, the pain taking over as he finally gave Jaemin around five names and a couple of random details. Having nothing to write those on, Jaemin hoped his brain wouldn’t fail him. The man looked at him with eyes full of hope, silently begging Jaemin not to kill him and praying that his contribution would get him to live. 

Jaemin heard loud steps, this time on the very floor of the suite. 

“That’s what traitors get,” he said, shooting the man right in the middle of his skull. The dull sound of bones cracking disgusted Jaemin as much as he was used to it by now. 

When he got up to escape the murder scene, the sight wasn’t pretty to watch. The men’s two legs were a mess of flesh and exploded bones, while blood had dripped down to the bedroom’s carpeted floor. Jaemin’s clothes were drenched in blood, and so were his hands. The smell could have been enough for him to throw up. 

He heard the door open as soon as he started running to the window, having realized this would be his only exit. If the man had spoken earlier, he would have had time to analyse where he’d land, but the massive number of gunshots heard from the distance was enough to comfort Jaemin this had been the only way out. 

The fall lasted for what felt like hours, and when Jaemin’s body finally hit the ground, he wondered if he hadn’t died. He had fallen on one of the cars parked in the avenue, the sheet metal bending under his weight and the gravity. The pain Jaemin felt through his entire being, from his head to his toes could have been enough for him to scream, but he had to escape the zone before someone found him. 

He rolled down to the floor, struggling to get on his feet. His back hurt as if a thousand of knives had been stuck in there, and he wondered how his legs could still function. 

The brunette painfully limped to the closest small street, eyeing a trail of blood at each step he took. It would not be long before the people after him would find him.

He fell on the concrete of a dim and narrow street; reaching for his vest and pulling out the phone his supervisor had gotten him. He knew that Donghyuck, who Jaemin only knew as Haechan, was in Paris too, and he had been given a number to reach in case of emergency.

“Haechan, pick me up in the street parallel to the avenue of the hotel. Hurry.” 

It was freezing cold outside. Jaemin felt his own blood dripping on the concrete, not really knowing from where it came from. He was in so much pain he could faint, but he was dependant on Donghyuck’s arrival. 

“You have really fucked up,” were the first words Jaemin heard when he arrived at the training centre after interminable hours of flight. 

The brunette had been in atrocious pain since Donghyuck had picked him long minutes after his fall. He probably had a couple of broken ribs, because of the purple and black bruises covering his torso. However, the supervisor had insisted to see him as soon as he arrived at the centre, impeding Jaemin to go to the medical office. 

“You were supposed to kill him discreetly,” the woman in front of him, one of Jaemin’s oldest supervisors, nudged him with her furrowed eyebrows. “And instead, all the news channel know that this has been a planned assassination,” she added. Jaemin lowered his eyes. 

“He didn’t want to speak,” Jaemin defended himself. 

“You’re trying to justify yourself?” the supervisor was really pissed now. “You sound just like him. I bet he tried to justify himself before you killed him,” she said in a mocking tone. Jaemin didn’t dare to look at her in the eyes and remained silent. “Go train now, seems like you need to,” she ended, eyeing the brunette limp when getting out of the office. 

Jaemin reached the main gymnasium with difficulty and glanced at the young trainees practising. It reminded him of years ago when he had barely been a teen. 

__

  
 _“Every human being has its limits.” The supervisor was going around the field, glancing at each one of them who looked at him with curious eyes. They had been pulled out of sleep in the middle of the night and_ were _standing outside, under the snow. “But you, my children. You are not allowed to have limits. You will not know what breaking points are.”_

_Jaemin was not older than nine, but he already knew that everything the supervisor ordered him had to be done. There was no such thing as disobeying. He had seen other children being beaten up or locked up in tiny rooms for days just for nasty glares. Jaemin knew he had to be smarter than this; even if he was freezing, his bare feet covered in snow, he had to endure._

_“You will run here in rounds until I say you can go back to sleep,” the supervisor gestured a large circle within the huge field surrounding the dorms and the main buildings. “If anyone stops, I’m adding an extra hour for everyone,” he ended. All the children began to run with slow steps, snow soon covering their hair._

_Jaemin’s limbs were painful as if the cold had frozen them. Each step felt like being stabbed, and he felt his cheeks burn because of the freezing weather. He eyed how everyone had very bright red faces, hands and feet, and how slow they all were._

_“Go faster!” the supervisor screamed. Jaemin rushed, the snow brushing his face in painful slaps. He saw Donghyuck painfully running behind Minhyung, who he knew as Mark, whose eyes showed an evident lack of sleep. Jaemin also glanced at Jeno, who did not look as bothered as everyone. The boy had a neutral look on his face and ran without any emotion showing._

_And so they ran, and they ran and they ran._

_Jaemin wondered how his body still held on. He knew somehow that it could be possible for his limbs to freeze to death because he_ couldn’t feel neither _of his hands nor his feet anymore. His face probably had ice flakes on it._

_At some point, a tall kid –Jungwoo, if Jaemin recalled well- tripped, his legs probably giving out. The supervisor announced they’d have to run one extra hour and screamed at Jungwoo to get up and continue running. Insults targeting the tall kid could be heard._

_Jaemin sped up, trying to see if running faster would help his aching legs or not. He reached Donghyuck’s side and glanced at the boy and how indeed, ice flakes covered his cheeks._

_“You have snowflakes in your eyelashes,” Donghyuck managed to say. Jaemin smiled as much as the pain allowed him to, enduring the torture again and again. He had to endure because falling would mean having to bear more pain._

_Two others fell, and at each of their fall, Jaemin saw anger boil up in everyone’s blood. They ran for around four hours before being allowed to enter their dorms again._

_“I thought I was going to die tonight,” Minhyung had tears in the corner of his eyes, and when a tear rolled down his cheek, it left a white mark. Jaemin didn’t even know how Minhyung had managed to speak, as he felt dizzy and his thoughts were messy. The boy ran to his bed, his thin blanket barely helping with the shivers._

_From then on, the running sessions happened weekly, whatever the weather. One day, when Jaemin had been thirteen, a violent storm had occurred, and the trainees had kept on losing balance. They had run all for hours and hours under the rain, the thunder slamming the trees close to them._

_“STOP! LET US IN!” at some point one girl nicknamed Yeri screamed, falling to the ground and glancing at the supervisor with a deadly glare. Everyone had stopped. None of them had ever seen anyone stand up to this training, and most of them stood there, unsure of what to do._

_The supervisor took his time to reach Yeri’s side, and nudged her from his height. She didn’t stop looking at him and did not move either._

_“You’re going to kill us,” she spat. The supervisor chuckled._

_“For sure,” and with a swift movement, he took out his handgun and shot her in the chest. Yeri fell dead, blood mixing with the rain. “You useless dumbasses keep going! I am sure the spirit of our beloved Yeri will encourage you.”_

_From then on, nobody ever whined again about the running training._

_____

  
“They’re pissed these days. Everyone seems to fail their missions and it’s getting on their nerves,” Donghyuck reached Jaemin’s side when he saw him sitting outside, a cigarette in his hand. The brunette offered one to the tan male. 

Donghyuck was one of Jaemin’s closest friends if they could consider each other as friends. He had been here before the brunette, and they had been trained in the same unit. Jaemin had been promoted to an agent a couple of months before Donghyuck, but the tan male acquired his title easily a bit after. 

“They’re asking a lot from us these days, everything is tensed,” Minhyung sat with them, a deep cut on his cheek. It looked terribly painful. 

Minhyung had trained with both of them but had been an agent for longer. He looked more tired and skinny than what Jaemin recalled. 

“I heard someone say we have been sent out too early,” Donghyuck replied. Jaemin sighed, terribly exhausted and feeling the pain in his ribs compress his lungs. 

“We’re probably going to train for months now before we see anything else than the centre,” the brunette said, letting the smoke out of his mouth. He was still surprised they had been allowed to smoke within the centre. 

“Fuck.” Minhyung rested his head on the tree behind them, glancing at the sunset. Some trainees, probably not older than ten were shooting the same wooden targets that they had been training with, years ago. 

“The only person I know didn’t fuck up his mission is Jen,” Donghyuck added, throwing his used cigarette away. 

“Who is even surprised,” Jaemin said with a flat tone, feeling his heart clench. Once more, Jeno had won. 

The brunette hated nothing more than being second. 

There was some inexplicable about the joy he felt when he was first and the pure rage that filled him whenever he wasn’t the number one.

He always gave all he had to excel. However, as long as he could remember, there had always been one person sitting in the corner, waiting to steal his well-deserved time under the spotlight. 

Lee Jeno.

Of course, Jaemin didn’t how this was his real name. Lee Jeno was known as Jen and had arrived around the same time than Jaemin. Jaemin didn’t know what his background was, but it was not like he cared. 

Everything about Jeno irked him; from the way he was always too competitive, too good at everything, too liked by everyone. The male always looked concentrated, focused on the tasks, unattainable by whatever he was asked to do. 

So of course, when there was a competition, Jeno and Jaemin fought and fought until one was first and the other, second. It was a known fact by the other boys and girls of their unit that they were the best. Their existence put a lot of pressure on everyone’s shoulders, and as the years went by, tensions rose as the number of trainees decreased. 

It seems to Jaemin that everywhere he went Jeno would be here too. They had been put in the same unit from their arrival, and as much as Jaemin prayed for Jeno to fail the centre’s expectations, he kept on acing the tests and being the supervisors’ pride. 

Jaemin knew that Jeno didn’t quite appreciate him either. The only times he really had seen the other boy look pissed was whenever they had to interact. Heated arguments often broke out whenever they were forced to speak to each other, and up to their teenage years, the only thing that had stopped them from physically fighting had been the very strict rules of the centre. No brawls and no romantic relationships were tolerated. 

They had been told that both would kill them. 

___

  
“You must have fallen from pretty high,” the nurse said when Jaemin lay on the small bed in the medical centre. This nurse had been here for as long as the brunette recalled, taking care of the trainees ever since they arrived here. 

Jaemin knew she was used to seeing worse, much worse, but she still seemed surprised when she saw the now blackened wounds on his bare chest. 

“There is nothing I can really do here,” she concluded, applying a freezing material on Jaemin’s torso. “You may have three or four ribs broken, but the only thing to do is wait for them to heal naturally,” she added. Jaemin winced in pain when she moved the small towel to the other side of his ribs. “I can give you medicine for the pain, it might shoot you up a bit but it will make it bearable.” The brunette nodded, knowing he was going to need them. If the supervisors had decided they were lacking, they would have to train extremely hard in the weeks to come. 

“Nana, the supervisors have called our unit for a meeting,” Minhyung burst the door open, knowing Jaemin had been going to the medical centre for his pain. Jaemin nodded, getting up from the bed and putting his sweater back on. 

“I’d advise rest but …” the nurse started, glancing at Jaemin with a compassionate smile. Jaemin sent her a small smile and took the medicine she had given him before leaving. 

Everyone Jaemin had grown up with was gathered in the gymnasium, a couple of neon being the only source of light in the rather dark room. 

“They look very solemn, I think we’re fucked,” Jaemin heard Jaehyun said when he sat on one of the bleachers, in one of the far left sides of the room. 

“Nice to have known you all then,” Yukhei whispered, one of his wrists being in a cast. He must have had a hard time with his missions too. Glancing around, Jaemin realized most of them were wounded, and the mood seemed generally down. Most of them had been working actively for less than a year, and it appeared that the results their supervisors had been expecting weren’t good at all. The brunette also saw five of the many supervisors that had trained him stand in the middle of the gymnasium, a pissed off look on their faces. “What happened to you, Nana?” he saw Yukhei turn to him, eyeing Jaemin turn to him in a painful movement.

“Nothing important,” he whispered, not wanting to be called out for talking during a meeting. 

“Always so humble, as expected from the best of us all,” the brunette heard Jaehyun say ironically. Jaemin sent a deadly glare in his direction, knowing that as much as they had been taught that they were family, tensions were quite intense. Jaemin had always been one of the bests of the unit, and this was not the first time he felt jealousy from others. He believed that seeing him like this, wounded and weak, must have given the other agents the time of their lives. 

“We are utterly disappointed in you all,” the main supervisor, a relatively old man said, and everyone shut up. “We thought you had trained hard for your missions, but it seemed like you are still all lacking a lot,” he added. 

Jaemin heard some agents whisper about how the missions they were given and the conditions to do them were the reason for the failures. A part of him agreed, but he knew better than taking part in those traitorous thoughts. 

“You all need way more training,” another supervisor stood out. Sighs could be heard in the gymnasium. “But as you know, we don’t have much time and we have a lot of demands for you all,” she added. Jaemin guessed this meant the supervisors were surrounded, and this played in the agents’ favour. “We have decided to review the whole organisation of this unit, and we have come to the conclusion that working in pairs is the best solution to ensure success in missions without putting you all in standby.”

Everybody stood silent, and it seemed that the supervisor created this silence voluntarily. 

To be fair, Jaemin knew this was not a bad idea.

If all single agents were lacking, putting two of them in a team would benefit the missions and decrease the mutual flaws. However, the brunette knew nobody felt joy about this. Most of them hated each other and felt a thick sense of competition, while they had been trained to act alone, without anyone else dragging them along. Working in pairs meant constant surveillance, as anyone would die to snitch on a fellow agent and for the most part, very unpleasant missions. 

Whispers filled the gymnasium again, and Jaemin eyed how everyone close to him seemed as drained and surprised as he was. Somehow, he felt relieved not having to go back to the old days of training but wondered if the whole new setting wasn’t going to make it worse for him. 

The supervisors ordered them to shut up, and one of the youngest ones came out with a couple of documents. 

“We made the pairs up. They are definitive unless we say so, and as soon as you are called, you go outside and wait for orders.” 

Tension could be felt, as most of the agents knew they would have no say their partner’s choice. Jaemin knew that pretty much everyone was as tensed as he was because they all knew that if they were paired with someone who was really lacking, the future failures would be blamed on the pair and not on the incompetent element. The brunette wondered if anyone hoped they would be paired up with him, considering he had been judged one of the strongest elements of the unit and realized that he only had two or three agents he didn’t really mind to be put with. 

Names were called out at a quick pace, and they realized that pairs were indeed very diverse. Most expected pairs to have a male and a female, but they ended up being quite variable. However, Jaemin soon understood that they had put them up with someone that would complete what they lacked. Joohyun was put with Sooyoung because she lacked dynamism while Sooyoung was too straightforward. Both of them completed each other pretty well but seemed really pissed when their names were called. 

Donghyuck was called with Minhyung, which was one of the rare teams Jaemin knew was happy to be together. Minhyung limped his way down the bleachers and got out. 

Jaemin was called right after this, and to be fair, he had expected his pair. 

Jeno. 

The brunette heard Jaehyun, Yukhei and others around him gasp, and realized he was quite thunderstruck even if he could have easily predicted this to happen. 

He knew that the supervisors wanted to maximize results by making up pairs, and knowing how Jeno and he were always judged as the best agents of the unit, it made sense to pair them up. There was no surprise in this choice, but Jaemin felt his blood boil at the sight of the agent’s black hair, going down the bleachers in silence. 

They went outside without saying a word, other names being called in the background before they reached the field where others pairs waited. Jaemin crossed Donghyuck’s amused and Minhyung’s compassionate glances when he stood there next to Jeno. 

The agent next to him took a cigarette out. 

“Want one?” he heard him ask, and Jaemin stared at him from the side. Jeno was one of the only ones not looking wounded, at least from the outside. The more the years went on, the more Jaemin felt intimated by him. His pitch-black eyes were the more terrifying part, and every time Jaemin stared at them, he felt like Jeno could see his soul. 

Knowing he could totally use a cigarette right now, Jaemin nodded, grabbing the cigarette Jeno lit for him in a quick move. The weather wasn’t bad tonight, and a light wind went through the trees of the main field, the one where they used to practice their running. 

Smoke went out of the brunette’s mouth when a couple of other supervisors reached their level after all the pairs had left the gymnasium. 

They were told that they would now work in pair for their missions and that this meant that they had to leave whatever feud they had behind to make sure the tasks would be entirely fulfilled. Jaemin heard them say they would not accept failure, and he knew the supervisors meant each and every word. 

___

**Sydney**

Jeno had been getting on Jaemin’s nerves and the brunette didn’t know how long he could go teaming up with him without losing his temper. 

He irked him from morning to evening, for little nothings added up throughout the days. They had travelled to a dozen countries now, killed more people than they could remember, and still, Jeno managed to annoy Jaemin just like the first day. 

Teaming up with him meant that Jaemin had to constantly stay with the other agent, be it during the missions, the monitoring or the flights back home. To add up, Jaemin found out that Jeno was very, very talkative. The brunette was sure his partner knew he couldn’t bear hear him speak and was annoying him on purpose. 

However, what got on the brunette’s nerves the most was how precise and skilled Jeno was when it came to ace the tasks given to them. It seemed so easy for him, so effortless, and all of this continually reminded Jaemin why he hated Jeno. 

“This has to be the most boring mission I’ve ever done,” Jeno whined, wiping some sweat off his forehead. 

They had been on the rooftop of a building for hours now, monitoring what seemed like a very important mafia gathering. Cars had been constantly arriving, letting men and women out in incessant motions. They had only been told to monitor if anything happened, and report to their supervisors. It contrasted to the usual violent missions assigned to them.

“Who asked?” Jaemin kept his glance focused on what was happening in the main avenue. The gathering taking place floors under screamed illicit activities, simply judging from the extremely expensive cars dropping off passengers, and the weapons he could see in the hands of drivers and what seemed to be bodyguards. 

“As usual, you’re despicable,” Jeno scoffed, taking a sip from the only bottle of water they had. 

“Using big words won’t make you smart,” the brunette sneered, motioning Jeno to hand him the water. Jaemin drank it all in one go. 

“It was the only water we had,” Jeno choked. 

“Too bad for you I guess,” Jaemin shrugged, throwing an innocent glance to his partner before turning back to the avenue. Cars still arrived, and he reported the situation to the supervisors as to avoid Jeno to keep up annoying him. “They say we have to shoot whoever we see now, create some panic,” Jaemin summed up the discussion with the centre to a quite surprised looking Jeno. 

“I knew this couldn’t be this simple,” he sighed, sitting up and putting his hand on his machine gun. The weapon was going to be of good help. 

“Talk to them if you want to complain,” Jaemin threw the phone at him, getting his own weapons ready. Shooting within the mass of people gathered would be easy, but they had to be extremely cautious because the people in the avenue also had quite deadly guns.

“Are you always this execrable or is this a special treatment for me?” Jeno positioned himself close to Jaemin, putting his machine gun on the edge of the building and aiming at the cars. 

“Special treatment? You think too highly of yourself” Jaemin shook his head in disbelief. 

“I pity anyone who has to work with you then,” Jeno laughed, regaining composure when he made sure the brunette was ready to act up. They shot the crowd at the same time, hearing screams and other shots, probably from the bodyguards. 

The two of them kept on shooting without particular aims for long seconds before entrenching behind a low wall. They could feel bullets flying over them, but the men in the avenue weren’t that skilled, and it was impossible to reach them with that angle and distance. The two agents stayed immobile for long minutes. 

“They know we’re here, they’re going to barge in at any time,” Jeno eventually said, making Jaemin sigh. As much as he hated Jeno, the other male was pretty smart and anticipated quite well every single situation. 

“Are you in for a brawl here or should we just run away?” Jaemin asked, feeling the bullets shake the low wall behind him. 

“Seems like we’re not going to have the choice,” Jeno snorted when they heard loud steps and shouts coming from the stairs leading to the rooftop. Jaemin rolled his eyes, loading his two handguns and motioning to Jeno the corner of the stairs. Jeno understood Jaemin’s plan, and the brunette tried to crawl as fast as possible to reach the door of the staircase, kneeling behind it. He could see the bullets still descend on the rooftop, smiling because he knew they would be very helpful in a few seconds. 

When the first mafia members barged in from the door, they didn’t have time to even see who had attacked them, as Jeno relentlessly shot them with the machine gun. Jaemin shot without aim from behind the door and the bullets from the avenue, originally aimed at the two agents, did the rest of the job. 

Jeno and Jaemin stopped shooting after a few seconds, eyeing the pile of bodies in front of the door. The bullets from the avenue had stopped descending on them. 

“Let’s go,” Jaemin motioned to Jeno to come to the staircase. The brunette, however, heard the sound of a gun being loaded, and in a fraction of second, he shot a woman who had gotten up from the pile and surely wanted to shoot his partner. The woman fell, dead, blood splashing on Jeno’s face. 

The latter rushed behind Jaemin, reaching the staircase and running down the stairs. 

“Guess your reflexes saved my life,” Jaemin heard Jeno say when they reached half of the floors, rushing as fast as they could so nobody would have the time to come chase them again.

“You should be grateful my reflexes aren’t making distinctions between the people I like and those I can’t stand,” Jaemin answered. 

The brunette didn’t know what was funny about what he said, but he heard Jeno’s laugh fill the entire staircase. 

___

  
_The running exercise had not been the only way to prove their resistance to human limits, Jaemin soon discovered._

_They were constantly trained to go beyond their limits, and such in different ways. The most frequent, and probably the easiest for the centre to handle was starvation. The trainees had to go through days and days without eating, sometimes with barely a sip or two of water allowed. They were told that if they ever were in a difficult position, unable to get food, or if they got caught, they’d have to know how to survive without food_

_“Accustoming your bodies to the lack of food will serve you right in the future,” the supervisor told them when she roamed through the dorms. All the trainees were in their beds, and it had been ten days since Jaemin had seen anything that could remotely be called food. They were given one sip of water in the morning and one other when the night came._

_Even if he had been used to for years now, Jaemin always felt the same symptoms whenever this part of the training came. He felt weak, extremely weak, and saw stars each time he tried to stand straight. His thoughts were incoherent and he often found himself dreaming about food, any kind of food._

_It usually happened that, after more than ten days of starvation, they encountered that some of the trainees had died of hunger._

_Jaemin thought this part of the training had left the biggest impact on him. He had such a bizarre relationship with food, as the years went by. He was used to thinking that hunger was a weakness and that he would never be the best agent out of everyone if he fell for the short-term pleasure that eating brought him._

_When they were not practising to withstand hunger, the brunette found himself training by his own, wondering how long he could go without eating and still practising on the side. Of course, hunger was way more striking in those personal_ trainings _than during the regular on. They were allowed to stay in bed all day when they practised together while Jaemin had to participate in all the different parts of training daily._

_After years of trying to surpass his own limits, he understood how to get optimal energy without succumbing too much to the weakness that eating was. He didn’t really feel hunger tore his guts apart anymore._

_____

**Bangkok**

“I guess we’re stuck here for long.” 

Jaemin was frowning.

They had barely escaped a fight with a local mafia that they had spent weeks spying on, trying to get information on who helped them and what resources they had. The mafia had caught them infiltrating one of their many headquarters, and they had been forced to lock themselves up in what seemed to be a vault within the mafia’s main headquarters. They had had no other choice considering how they had been taken by surprise and the number of mafia members that had arrived as soon as they were discovered. 

“Guess our starvation training will finally serve us right today,” Jeno said as Jaemin sat on the floor, putting his machine gun down, but still close to him. Who knew what could happen at any time?

“It’s not the time to joke around,” Jaemin was pissed because he knew they had fucked up and that their supervisors wouldn’t be too happy to know they didn’t manage to go incognito in the headquarters. 

“Right, we’re going to die like dehydrated starved rats here but we can’t even have a good laugh,” Jeno rolled his eyes, sighing. They could hear a couple of voices on the other side of the thick metal door. 

“You die here if you want, I personally don’t plan to,” Jaemin glanced at Jeno staying close to the door, probably trying to figure out what the mafia had been saying beyond the reinforced door. 

“I would rather die here than face the supervisors when they’re going to know we fucked up,” Jeno snickered.   


“Good. I’ll finally get rid of you, after all these years. ” Jaemin didn’t really plan for it to sound this harsh, and Jeno’s expression was saddening. However, the brunette had been trained to be emotionless and more than that, to train his own brain to not mind other’s emotions. He closed his eyes, resting his head on the wall. 

Jaemin woke up what seemed to be ages after, and saw that Jeno had not yet found his way out. He was sitting on the unique chair of the room, apparently deep in thoughts. 

“Haven’t planned your sweet escape, Mr I know it all?” 

“They’re probably going to kill us before starvation does,” Jeno answered with a flat tone, relaxing on his chair. Jaemin raised his eyebrows. “They have been talking about wanting to get some information from us first,” he added.

Jaemin sighed. He knew that if the mafia wanted information, they would think that torture would be the easy way out and that in a day or two the deal would be sealed. However, both Jeno and Jaemin had been trained to withstand pretty much everything. Plus, they had been told from their youngest age that collaboration with preys equalled a death sentence back home if they made it alive. A year ago, the brunette had witnessed one of the girls he had trained with being shot as soon as she had returned for having shared the tiniest bit of information. 

“Nice, can’t wait to see how they’ll torture us.” Jaemin got up, feeling a bit dizzy when he did so. It had been hours without any sip of water, and his body ached because of the fight earlier. 

“You’re so insensitive,” Jeno didn’t look at the brunette when he said so. Jaemin got closer to him, facing his partner. 

“I might be, but this is the very reason why I’m a better agent than you,” Jaemin locked his glance with Jeno’s, his face so close to him that he could feel his breath on his cheeks.

“The chances of dying here are pretty high, but the only thing you’re thinking of is your damn pride?” Jeno easily pushed Jaemin away with one hand, watching the brunette stumble a bit. 

“Says who?” 

Jeno didn’t get the chance to answer as they both heard the door unlock. Jumping on their own weapons, they were faced with the same males than earlier, also heavily prepared. Launching an attack now would be a suicide mission; both Jaemin and Jeno knew it.

“Drop your weapons,” the tone of the man with a tattoo starting from the top of his skull was cold, and he had two handguns pointed at each of them. With one quick glance at Jeno, Jaemin dropped his weapon and heard his partner do so. “You, here,” he gestured to Jeno, grabbing his arm with violence. Jaemin knew Jeno could easily have disarmed the man and perhaps handled the others waiting at the door who had lowered their guard, but to Jaemin’s surprise, he didn’t. 

The man took Jeno away and closed the door. 

Jaemin found himself thinking about the situation over and over. They probably had taken Jeno away to interrogate him. Jeno would not say anything, so they’d probably torture him and call him in again the next day. However, Jeno had had a tiny chance of saving them and he had not taken it. This meant he must have had a plan, and Jaemin knew that despite all the negative emotions he had for his partner, Jeno was a very smart man. 

The brunette sat on the floor, trying to hear without success anything happening in the room nearby. They must have brought Jeno somewhere else. 

Hours flew, and Jaemin only realized he had fallen asleep when the door burst open, Jeno falling on the ground a few seconds before the door was closed once more. 

The sight in front of Jaemin wasn’t pretty, but it was nothing he hadn’t already seen. Blood was dripping from Jeno’s temple, and he looked like he would have a black eye in the days to come. He spat out blood, wincing in pain when doing so which probably meant he had been hit in the ribs pretty bad. 

Silently, Jaemin ripped a thick piece of his own shirt, handing it to Jeno to absorb the blood on his temple. As much as he disliked him, they had been taught that no matter what happened, if possible, they must help each other in complicated situations. 

He eyed how the white material became soaked with the red liquid, a metallic smell invading the tiny room they were stuck in. 

“What did they ask?” Jaemin eventually asked when he saw Jeno lean on the wall too. The agent took time to answer, probably still dizzy from the previous events. 

“About our training, and the centre too. They know who we are. Seem like this was all an ambush.” 

Jaemin gasped, not expecting this kind of answer. The mafia apparently knew that they were secret agents, and had heard of their program too if they needed information about it. 

“They must have tried to get the attention of the centre to get some of us to intervene,” Jaemin summed up, and Jeno nodded. “This isn’t that bad, they won’t kill us for sure, and they will want us alive whatever happens,” he deduced.

They remained in silence for hours again, without any clock or window to indicate how much time went on. Jeno was sleeping on the right side of the room, his forehead and cheeks now covered in dried blood. Jaemin found himself incapable of sleeping, even if hunger and thirst were making him weak and dizzy. 

He knew that they could survive there for more days, but each second here felt like a failure to the brunette. Getting out of the underground base seemed easy, and he had already made up different scenarios. However, Jeno looked like he could use some rest. Jaemin knew he couldn’t leave him behind; he has been taught from the day he started training that agents had to be solidary and consider the other agents as family. Plus, the other male was not injured enough to pretend he died wounded.

Jaemin inspected the two weapons they had, wondering why the mafia had not confiscated them already. They were empty, they had checked, but they still could be used by anyone skilled enough to disarm them. It seemed that they made mistakes over mistakes, and it was no wonder they needed some information about the program Jaemin and Jeno belonged to, as to overcome all these flaws.

Jeno eventually woke up, finding Jaemin roaming in the room. The brunette heard him grunt, pain probably waking him up. He knew he shouldn’t feel compassionate, as years of training had taught him that pain was nothing else but weakness. However, seeing his partner wince made something to his heart, a tiny spark hurting him from within. 

“Do you think you’re okay to try something today?” Jaemin asked, sitting next to his partner. “Don’t play tough though, I need a true answer,” he added. Jeno eyed him, seeing how thirst had made Jaemin’s lips dry and his eye bags grow deeper. 

“Tomorrow should be fine,” Jeno eventually answered. Jaemin nodded, feeling that Jeno’s answer was genuine. 

“Let’s hope we get water today.”

They did not, and nobody came at all for what felt like days.

Jaemin guessed that they must have been freaking out, probably trying to create strategies to make them speak. Jaemin realized they must have either been really unskilled or really documented about them, as any abductor would have at least given its prisoners water. Jeno and Jaemin had been trained to resist days without anything to survive, as much as the brunette felt his guts contract each time he got up. 

There was nothing in the room that they could have used as food or a water source. 

Jaemin decided to save his saliva as soon as Jeno and he figured out their escape plan, remaining immobile next to the door. He was ready to act upon the first occasion he’d have. 

The wait felt endless, and when the brunette heard footsteps next to the door, he knew it was time. A slight glance to Jeno indicated his partner was ready too. 

Jaemin positioned himself right next to the door, knowing that as soon as it would open, he would have to disarm anyone who was going to enter. It was risky, as he had nothing but his empty machine gun, and was pretty vulnerable to bullets. However, their escape relied on this very moment, and pure adrenalin ran through his veins. 

As soon as the door burst open, Jaemin jumped on the first person, shattering his skull with a swift movement of his empty machine gun. He barely had time to grab the dead body’s weapon and throw it to Jeno that bullets ran free within the room. The brunette quickly threw himself on the floor, eyeing how a second person, a woman, fell dead. He reached for her handgun and eyed how Jeno had been shooting at the door and gracefully avoiding bullets that were shot in his direction. More bodies feel on the floor, some heavily injured and some dead. 

Jaemin kneeled down close to the door, eyeing how there seemed to be no one else. It was hard to know, considering a heavy smoke had invaded the small underground rooms, but he decided to go with his instinct. With one quick gesture, he signalled Jeno to get out. 

Jeno had told him that from the room outside the door, there was a long corridor and at the end, stairs that would bring them to the first floor. From there, they’d have to run to the main exit, a small street on the side of the main avenue. 

The two males ran through the corridors; smoke making it almost impossible to breathe. The air was stuffy and their eyesights were altered. Reaching the stairs, they suddenly heard that, some had still been alive and were running after them. Shots were loud in the distance, and both Jaemin and Jeno rushed in the stairs, jumping from step to step. 

Until Jaemin felt an excruciating pain in his lower abdomen, making him fall in the stairs. 

He realized he had been shot when he felt hot, thick blood running down his thighs and on the steps. His vision became blurry, and he couldn’t hear anything at all. The brunette felt his breath hitch and his heart beat at an abnormal rhythm. 

He was broken out of his shocked state when he felt Jeno catch his forearm, forcing him to get up. Thoughts were messy in the brunette’s mind, but he knew that some mafia members probably had managed to chase them down and that they’d be shot dead if they didn’t leave fast. 

The pain he felt when trying to follow Jeno’s steps was unbearable, and Jaemin didn’t recall how they managed to get off the building and roam through the busy streets. The air was hot, but the brunette didn’t seem to feel anything apart from blood dripping again and again. Judging from the pain and the blood loss, this might have been pretty serious.

The mafia members were still running after them, and gunshots were heard in the distance. Street sellers, tourists and passersby were running away in fear, and Jaemin knew the panic would be beneficial for them to escape. However, he soon saw stars and felt his knees give out, falling on the burning hot concrete. 

He remembered thinking that it was such a pity to die like this, in such a worthless mission. He had been reckless, running away too fast and not killing all the mafia members before leaving the vault. Jeno had told him before that they should do this, make sure everyone was dead, but the brunette had brushed him off, saying that others would have enough time to come and slaughter them if they did so. Jaemin had no one to blame but himself for what happened, and it seemed that he would pay the price, making him die because of a single tiny mistake. 

Jaemin knew Jeno was trying to get him back on his legs, but the brunette couldn’t feel his body anymore and everything around him was a blur. Blood dripped down on the concrete; the smell, that gross metallic smell invaded Jaemin’s lungs. 

The brunette felt Jeno carry him across his left shoulder, his blood dripping on the male’s shirt, tainting it bright red. The position was making the pain unbearable, and Jaemin didn’t recall anything that happened after. 


	2. Chapter 2

_ The first time Jaemin saw a dead body up close, he had been ten.  _

__

_ Of course, he had already seen other trainees die, but this time was different. Their supervisor had told them they had to know how to heal wounds.  _

__

_ “By no way, you will be allowed to go to the hospital when you’ll become agents. They would ask your name and have your handprints, and this is something we won’t allow,” the woman narrated to the dozens of children gathered around the dead body. “You have to know how to heal wounds by yourself, and this is the only thing that will save you or the others in case of emergency.” _

__

_ Jaemin had been really grossed out by the dead body, a young woman whose skin was turning grey and who had multiple shots in her naked body.  _

_ The supervisor taught them how to remove bullets, opening the dead flesh in front of the trainees. Some were sick seeing this and went to vomit outside. They were not allowed in again.  _

__

_ “Bullets may be small, but they are really deadly, especially if they pierce organs or arteries. Death may come as soon as the bullet crosses your body; there is nothing to be done here. However, if it is stuck somewhere, you might want to wait to see if blood stops dripping, One can live with a bullet in the body,” the supervisor explained. She went on explaining to them in which cases to remove a bullet, and how to do it with various instruments.  _

__

_ Jaemin remembered how they trained on each other next. They had been given knives and been ordered to cut their skins and sew it back together.  _

__

_ The young boy didn’t have time to fully register what happened that he felt a terrible pain on his arm. He was faced with Jeno, who probably had been told to train on him. The child with pitch-black hair got some alcohol as their supervisor had told them to do.  _

__

_ “It hurts!” Jaemin had whined, seeing his own blood drip on the floor. _

__

_ “You’re such a sissy,” Jeno laughed, applying more liquid on the wound. Jaemin glared at him with anger.  _

__

_ “I hate you,” Jaemin had told him, feeling a strange pain when Jeno grabbed the needle and began to sew the wound. It looked really disgusting, and Jaemin had wanted to vomit when he saw the fresh red wound all sewed up.  _

__

_ The supervisor went to check on Jeno’s work. _

__

_ “Perfect, as usual,” she praised Jeno, who shot a daring glance at the brunette. “Now, change the roles,” she added, and this time the smile on Jeno’s face disappeared. Jaemin felt joy invade him, but he soon was reminded he never had done this before, and even if this was Jeno in front of him, he didn’t really want to hurt him.  _

__

_ “Give me your hand,” he said, Jeno giving him his bruised hand, bruised because of their daily training. The brunette eyed the limb and did a small, rather not deep cut on the side of Jeno’s hand. He knew that he should probably have done a more dramatic cut, but a part of him, that weak part that he kept on trying to destroy, had been stronger this time.  _

__

_ Jeno seemed surprised, and Jaemin quickly sewed the wound in silence.  _

__

_ “The sewing is good, but nobody is going to get such a small cut,” the supervisor scolded the ten years old Jaemin.  _

__

_ For once, he didn’t see a haughty look on Jeno’s face when he lost to him.  _

_

All Jaemin could feel was heat.

He was hot, burning hot. Sweat was dripping on his forehead in thick drops, and his stomach region felt like it was on fire. His mouth was dry, and he was dying to get water, any source of it.

Regaining a bit of consciousness, he realized he wasn’t in the busy Bangkok streets, but in what seemed to be a cheap hotel room with a dirty fan brassing hot wind in slow movements.

He felt relieved that they made out of the complicated situation, and knew that if Jeno brought them here, he knew what he was doing. The mafia must have lost their trace and they must have been waiting for another agent to pick them up and leave the country.

However, Jaemin wondered if he would make it out alive.

He had been shot in the past, during practice and his third mission. But it had neither been this painful nor had it bled that much. It must have been more than an hour that he had taken the bullet, and he could still feel hot blood tainting the sheets under his body.

He tried to get up from his lying position, but his lower part hurt too much, and more blood gushed out the wound when he did so. Jaemin winced in pain and eyed Jeno coming out of the side of the room, using the phone they had been given in case of emergency, looking visibly pissed.

“There is no network here,” he said, throwing the phone of the side of the room, coming closer to the bed. He eyed how more blood had dripped out, the bed under Jaemin looking like a murder scene. It seemed like they had just arrived at the hotel, as Jeno ripped some of the sheets and came next to Jaemin, trying to use it as a tourniquet. Jaemin screamed in pain when he did so, feeling the excruciating pain paralyse his whole body. He knew he was feverish by now, his sight highly diminished.

“I’m sorry, but there’s no other option,” Jeno apologized, tightening the material on Jaemin’s waist. Blood ran down his stomach and on Jeno’s hands in thick streams.

“Is it… It’s the artery right?” Jaemin managed to whisper, and Jeno nodded, a neutral look on his face. Of course, Jaemin knew that the best agent of the unit knew how to keep calm when a fellow agent was bleeding to death. Hell, he might even rejoice of being the last one standing. “Don’t … lose your time then. Go home,” he added. Jaemin knew that this could be fatal, and they had been told that if someone was dying, they had to abandon them and save their own lives.

Jeno came back with towels to clean the blood and didn’t spare Jaemin a glance.

“Let’s wait to see what happens during the night. You might survive,” he said with a flat tone.

“You seem … disappointed,” Jaemin knew speaking was making it worse for him, as he already was quite weak, but he couldn’t help it. Maybe it was a way for him to make sure he was still alive.

“If I wanted you dead, trust me, you would be by now,” Jeno suddenly glanced in Jaemin’s brown pupils, with those eyes that sent chills to the brunette’s spine. Jaemin had to admit that Jeno was anything but ugly, but those eyes always managed to make him uncomfortable, even after nearly two decades of training with the other male.

Jaemin didn’t really know what happened next, as fever took over. He seemed to have lost consciousness quite a few times and recalled feeling pain, pure delirious pain, as if his entire body had been on fire for hours and hours. Jaemin also remembered hallucinating for the most part.

All that he knew is that when he managed to wake up, his case had worsened. He was now trembling, and his thoughts were incoherent.

The brunette gathered as much strength as possible to open his eyes and realized only a few hours had passed. Jeno was sleeping on the sofa next to the door, his hand on his machine gun. Anyone would fear to do so, in case of a missed shot, but having your weapon close felt like home for agents.

Jeno looked extremely tired, Jaemin figured out. Dark circles surrounded his eyes and his cheekbones looked really sharp. He still had dried blood on his temple, as well as hands dirtied by blood. Jaemin’s blood.

Speaking of which, Jaemin realized there still was a bit of blood dripping out from his open wound, despite the tourniquet. This was bad, really bad, and he wondered how the hell did his body still fight when he must have been entirely blood drained by now.

Their hotel room’s neighbours were suddenly noisy, and Jeno burst awake, aiming at the wall with his gun. When he realized it was nothing serious, he relaxed and sighed. He then turned to Jaemin and saw the later was awake. 

“Do you feel any better?” He asked, but the look on his face indicated he had seen that, no, Jaemin wasn’t doing any better, and that he’d probably die if nothing was done to save him. Jaemin managed to shake his head.

Jeno came close, sitting on the edge of the bed, inspecting the wound.

“It seems like I’m going to have to take the bullet out,” Jeno said with a flat tone. Jaemin knew that he was right, recalling the classes they had taken and the supervisor’s words. “I finally reached the centre, help is coming tomorrow. But they said the officials are looking for us, and we must not get out of here,” the agent explained.

Jeno then got up for a few minutes, coming back with a sewing kit that must have been provided in the room, as well as more towels. Opening the mini bar, he took out a mini bottle of vodka.

“This is probably going to hurt a lot,” Jeno warned Jaemin as if the brunette had any choice.

“No shit,” Jaemin managed to say with sarcasm, screeching when he felt Jeno’s fingers alcohol coated dug in his wound. He felt like he was cut in two, his vision slowly becoming filled with black dots. Jaemin placed one of his hands on his mouth to silence his screams of pain.

He felt Jeno’s free hand grab his other hand, probably in a reassuring gesture. Jaemin held it tight, so tight that he wondered how Jeno’s bones didn’t break in his hold. The pain he felt was so intense that we wondered if he would survive. He knew Jeno tried his best to make this quick, but those seconds he spent searching for the bullet in Jaemin’s stomach felt like days, months of torture.

Everything that happened after was a blur, but Jaemin remembered seeing Jeno show him the bullet that he had successfully removed. He also felt the needle pierce the skin on his lower abdomen when his partner stitched the wound, and some water run down on his stomach. He guessed Jeno must have cleaned him up.

Jaemin slept again for hours and hours, fever waking him up at various occasions even if he could feel it decrease throughout the night. Jeno had been nice enough to leave him on the now clean bed, having removed the sheets that had been soaked in blood. The person who’d enter their room after they’d leave would have quite a shock.

When he regained full consciousness, the brunette could see that rain was covering the thin windows of the room, lulling him with a regular and reassuring sound. The fever had almost disappeared, and even if Jaemin’s lower stomach hurt like hell, the feeling of being able to sit up and not feel blood gush out reassured the brunette. He doubted the artery would recompose itself without any surgery, but they would soon be departing home and Jaemin would go to the medical centre to get some treatment.

“I should have listened to you,” Jaemin told Jeno when the agent woke up, eyeing how the brunette looked way better even if the wound looked terribly painful. Jeno raised his eyebrows. “You said we had to kill them all before considering escaping, and I brushed you off. You were right,” Jaemin admitted. Fatigue had probably taken over him for him to admit failure.

“I never thought I’d ever get to hear you apologize for something,” Jeno snickered, eating a bar of cereal he had found in the room. Jaemin managed to roll his eyes. “But to be really honest, I wish I hadn’t been. The bullet was awfully close to your kidney,” Jeno recalled.

“Guess I really saw death up-close,” Jaemin said, gladly taking the water bottle Jeno offered him. The agent sat on the edge of the bed, checking on the stitched wound. It looked gross, but it wasn’t bleeding any more. “You missed your chance of being the ultimate winner,” the brunette added, throwing a daring glance at his partner.

“Oh but there’s no point in a competition if only one person is fighting, darling,” Jeno said, responding to the brunette’s look with the same insolence. It left Jaemin quite speechless. He was used to being the sarcastic, flirty one with his preys, and seeing is own tricks used on him made him gasp, and his heart miss in beat.

He blamed his wounded and exhausted self for such a reaction. 

-

_ The centre seemed to know that Jeno and Jaemin didn’t appreciate each other at all. _

__

_ Jaemin always remembered how, when he failed tasks during practice, he would hear those words “Jen did so much better.” He wondered if Jeno had been told the same thing, or if it was genuinely accepted by everyone that he was better than Jaemin would ever be. _

__

_ The supervisors seemed to like making them compete against each other. Jaemin guessed it had to do with the fact that, when put against the other, they would push their limits and perform better this way.  _

__

_ As much as he hated the feeling of losing to Jeno, Jaemin lived for the feeling of winning over him.  _

__

_ The last step to becoming an agent was coming close, Jaemin could feel it. He had just celebrated his seventeenth birthday and knew he would be promoted as a secret agent soon because of the intensity of the training he had had recently.  _

__

_ He barely had time to sleep or eat, as practises filled his endless days. His body ached after each hour of sleep he managed to grasp, but knowing his trainee days would be over soon was enough to make him endure anything.  _

__

_ One of the practises Jaemin hated the most was the one where he had to fight with the fellow trainees. The brunette knew Donghyuck and Jeno were about to be promoted too, as they had been training together more often in the last weeks. Minhyung had just received his title a few months before, and it had been a long time since Jaemin had seen him.  _

__

_ The supervisor seemed to enjoy putting Jaemin against Jeno in those fight practises, as much as Jaemin hated it. He knew Jeno played dirty, and that he never spared him during those fights.  _

__

_ However, as the years went on, Jeno seemed to be more and more lenient and lazy when he fought Jaemin. They were allowed no weapons, but even the strength in the arms and the legs of the other trainee seemed to decrease every time he fought with Jaemin.  _

__

_ The brunette wondered if Jeno was doing this on purpose, not wanting to lose his energy on futile fights or if he really was exhausted and had no energy left to ace those fights.  _

__

_ He had seen Jeno fight with Donghyuck and realized how Jeno seemed to have been sparing only him. Donghyuck would always get out of the gymnasium with his nose severely damaged, and Jeno didn’t seem to spare him any glance when he effortlessly won over him again and again.  _

__

_ Jeno was truly mocking Jaemin when he played dumb during their fights, the brunette realized. He was skilled, Donghyuck didn’t fake his pain, and Jaemin couldn’t really get why Jeno didn’t seem to want to fight dirty like he did a couple of years ago.  _

__

_ The brunette took the chance to check it for himself during another fight they had been ordered to do, hitting and hitting, while Jeno was acting as he had never been taught how to fight. He sloppily missed Jaemin’s blow, stumbling a few times, and never fought back. It angered Jaemin to the point he just unleashed all the anger he had about the situation, how he hated to feel played by Jeno and how he couldn’t find any joy in the blows he gave the male.  _

__

_ “Why don’t you fucking fight back?” he hissed in between blows, Jeno’s blood in his hands. Jeno’s black pupils were starring at him but he remained silent, taking the blows without resisting much.  _

__

_ Jaemin got promoted as an agent a couple of days after, and never got the answer to Jeno’s evident passiveness towards him.  _

** - **

** Hong Kong  **

****

Jaemin and Jeno had been paired up for six months now, and Jaemin must have admitted that those long weeks since Bangkok had been better than what he had initially thought.

Jeno wasn’t as bad as he imagined; worse, he was even a nice person, if you let aside the fact that Jaemin had spent what seemed like his entire life trying to be better than him.

Jaemin found out Jeno wasn’t the pretentious prick he had imagined him to be.

He was kind, and this fact surprised Jaemin the most. When they came back from Thailand, he took all the responsibility for their partial failure. It spared Jaemin long days of intensive practice Jeno had to do to compensate the mistakes he had admitted to committing. This left the brunette time to heal from his bruise and the surgery he received at the medical centre.

Jaemin had been quite surprised to hear Jeno entirely denying Jaemin’s involvement in the situation they had been confronted to in Bangkok. He would have thought Jeno was the type of person to snitch on a fellow agent if this could save him; he found out that his partner had a kind heart, even towards the very agent that embodied the one threat to his successes.

Throughout their numerous missions all over the globe, Jaemin realized that Jeno was smart, incredibly smart. He had that kind of intelligence that would have gotten him far in life if he had not been an agent trained in a secret program. When Jaemin was all about action, shooting, seducing and leaving no time for deep analysis, Jeno was a thinker. He always anticipated the flaws of their missions and their interventions and was quite skilled in reading people.

Jaemin understood that their team was yet another proof they were supposed to make up for what the traits respectively lacked.

“You know what? I’m tired of fighting with you. It drains my energy and I need it for the missions.”

Jaemin eyed Jeno’s expression from the central mirror of the car, the smoke of his partner’s cigarette flying out the opened window. The agent seemed pretty determined.

“We wouldn’t fight if you weren’t so annoying,” Jaemin argued, changing the gear to speed up on the highway. They had been following for about half an hour a couple they had to kill, and Jaemin loved the thrill whenever he had the opportunity to drive.

“As if you’re an angel yourself?” Jeno’s tone was aggressive. Jaemin knew that he wasn’t the nicest towards his partner; despite the constant proofs Jeno gave him that he wasn’t as bad as Jaemin had imagined him to be. Jaemin’s pride was too big for him to admit he had been wrong the whole time, picturing the male as his worst enemy while he just happened to be just like him, competitive and quite arrogant.

“I never said I was perfect,” Jaemin started, lighting up a cigarette as soon as they reached a red light. His eyes were focused on their targets’ expensive car.

“It’s good that you are aware of it,” Jeno snickered.

“See? You could have just, I don’t know, shut up? And you’re here making me lose my patience,” Jaemin shook his head, the smoke from the cigarette filling the car. He didn’t bother to open his window.

“I’m just trying to be entertaining,” Jeno defended himself. “Those missions are boring as hell, you know it, and a little fun never killed anyone,” he continued.

“You’re way more fun when you don’t speak, trust me,” Jaemin glanced at him from the side, watching the agent roll his eyes. He scoffed.

They drove for another half an hour before realizing the couple had been going to their house, a gigantic penthouse in a remote part of the island. They parked a hundred meters from the residence and made their way to the gardens.

“Is this a garden or a private forest,” Jeno thought out loud, pointing to the fountain and many different types of trees and flowers. Jaemin shook his head in disbelief, having never seen something quite like this.

They managed to enter the house pretty easily, outwitting the security system in a matter of seconds. Jaemin eyed Jeno entering the penthouse as if he owned the place, moving silently and gracefully. He followed him in the house that had such a refined design despite being the largest residence Jaemin had ever seen. The view from the living room, on the sea and the mountains was one of the most gorgeous the brunette had ever seen and was enough to distract him when Jeno surprised the couple making out on the couch.

When they saw the two males, they screamed, terrified. The man seemed to eye how they could have entered despite the expensive security system, while the woman was pressed against him, a few tears rolling down her face.

“Take whatever you want, but don’t hurt my wife,” the man said, putting a protective hand on said wife’s leg.

“Too bad that the thing we need is your lives,” Jaemin approached the sofa, seeing the couple back up, frightened.

“We could pay you, whatever you want. We have done nothing wrong,” the man spoke fast, a sign that betrayed his stress and his fear of dying at any moment. Jeno kept his handgun pointed at them without moving.

“We don’t care,” Jaemin’s tone was flat and disinterested. As usual, neither Jeno nor Jaemin had been given details about the reason for their mission. That couple didn’t look that bad if you put aside the fact that they were filthy rich. They seemed to love each other, shiny wedding rings on their hands. Diamonds, probably.

“We … we have a child. Please, don’t do this. She can’t be an orphan, I beg you,” the wife cried at the evocation of her daughter, glancing at Jaemin pleadingly.

It only made the brunette roll his eyes, having heard such discourses again and again throughout his short life as an agent. The sense of family was something he had never been sensitive to up to now, probably because his own parents had cowardly abandoned him to this tragic destiny. Now, the couple was crying about their child, but who knew what they’d do to that girl in the future? Perhaps his own parents had loved him before deciding they didn’t need him anymore.

In addition to that, Jaemin had seen so much misery, pain throughout his missions. People were cruel and would be willing to do everything if this meant they could indulge another day.

“What are you waiting for?” Jaemin turned to Jeno, his eyebrows raised. The brunette perceived something in Jeno’s eyes, perhaps pity for the couple. Jeno seemed to wake up from his state of reverie when he heard Jaemin speak to him, and nodded.

With two quick movements, the couple was dead, their bodies lying on the sofa as if they were sleeping. They had been trained to never miss a shot, and Jeno proved his skills once more.

“Having this much wealth should be criminal,” Jaemin said when he roamed around the house, eyeing the numerous expensive-looking art pieces and wine bottles.

“Guess they paid the price with their lives,” Jeno answered, eyeing the brunette come to the room he had just entered, lying on the bed nonchalantly. He had a golden bottle in his hand. “Stealing from the dead, what a sin,” he chuckled, seeing his partner open the bottle, making sure no champagne dripped on the bed. The view from this room was even prettier than the one from the living room, the sunset filling the gigantic bay window with warm colours.

“It’s not like they’re gonna know,” Jaemin argued, taking a long sip from the bottle and then handing it to Jeno. It tasted fancy, and he guessed it must have been worth hundreds of thousands.

They remained on the bed for a while; eyeing the sky becoming dark and the stars appear in the darkened scenery. The bottle was empty pretty fast, and the two of them lay here in silence.

“We should do a truce,” Jeno broke the silence, shifting his body to glance at Jaemin who had sleepy eyes.

“What for?”

“For the sake of the missions. We would work better if we pretended not to hate each other,” Jeno explained. Jaemin chuckled.

“I don’t hate you though,” the words went out of Jaemin’s mouth without him realizing it. “Loving, hating … all of this is for the weak,” he added.

“You don’t have to pretend here, the supervisors can’t hear us,” Jeno answered, resting his head on his hand.

“I’m not pretending,” Jaemin was offended, getting up from his nonchalant position. “ I really don’t care,” he continued.

“They’ve trained you really well, then,” the words felt pejorative coming out from Jeno’s mouth.

“May I remind you we have had the same training? Or do you feel that superior?” Jaemin nudged Jeno, the lights of the penthouse’s garden playing on his face.

“Not at all. To be honest, I admit I never managed to block out my emotions,” Jeno announced, glancing at the horizon. “I don’t think it’s a bad thing though. We were taught it is, but I cherish my sentiments,” he added.

Jaemin pondered Jeno’s words. It was the first time his partner revealed such intimate details, and even if he couldn’t get what Jeno meant by cherishing such deadly things as emotions, he felt glad to see this side of the male. Perhaps he also felt prideful knowing he wasn’t as perfect as Jaemin had pictured him, a victim of his weak nature.

“Is this why you were taken aback before we killed them?” Jaemin pointed to the living room with his chin and Jeno nodded.

“They didn’t seem to deserve to die,” he explained. Jaemin saw what Jeno meant by emotions when he eyed the traits of his partner’s face soften, probably recalling their supplications. “I knew we would be the source of pain for their child, and it made me feel … sorrowful, I guess?”

“You should trust the supervisors. That couple died for a reason,” Jaemin said mechanically. He couldn’t get how Jeno seemed to have such little trust in their centre.

Jaemin observed how Jeno looked quite disappointed and realized that he might have been once more quite cold to him. But what did he expect? Jaemin couldn’t understand what Jeno had been feeling, because he had been fighting his own emotions for nearly two decades. He was not going to ruin all those efforts just because Jeno wanted to speak about his own flaws.

“If you say so,” Jeno’s tone was dry when he got up from the bed, putting the duvet back to place. Nobody would ever guess what had happened in this house.

They returned to the car in silence, driving to the airport as the mission was over and they had another one awaiting them on the other side of the world.

“I’m in for a truce, though,” Jaemin declared on their way to the airport. Jeno seemed surprised but nodded. “But don’t expect me to remain quiet if you irk me,” he added.

“I didn’t expect anything else from you,” Jeno smiled.

** - **

** Mexico  **

****

“We’ve been watching the hotel for hours now and not a single thing has happened,” Jeno sighed, sweat dripping on his forehead. The car didn’t have any air conditioner, and the weather had been especially hot throughout the day.

“Something is off,” Jaemin muttered, resting his elbows on the wheel of the car.

“Oh really?” Jeno faked sarcasm, turning to Jaemin and adjusting the passenger seat.

“I thought we said we were on a truce,” Jaemin retorted, eyeing the male’s bare bicep covered in bruises from their last mission. A month had gone since their Hong Kong trip.

“Sorry, can’t help it,” Jeno faked innocence.

They waited for one or two hours more before Jaemin got off the car to get them something to eat before the stores closed.

They were sent in Mexico to get information about a gang operating for months now. Apparently, they had been pissing out important people, because there were around ten agents of the unit on this case. Jaemin knew Minhyung and Donghyuck were positioned at the other side of the hotel they were monitoring, and that another pair had been renting a room next to their preys'.

Neon lights were really bright in the shop Jaemin entered, and there was no air conditioner either. The cashier was busy on his phone and didn’t seem to mind seeing a tall, young foreigner enter his shop.

Nothing seemed to happen, everything was quiet and this was bugging Jaemin quite a lot. Their mission officer had told them that this gang was shady and that everyone knew and feared them in the zone. However, quietness was the one word to describe the place now.

“Anything happened?” Jaemin asked when he came back to the car. Jeno, who was now shirtless, sweat dripping down his torso too because of the heat, shook his head. “You’re really shameless,” Jaemin snickered, handing his partner a plastic bag full of junk food.

“I am just too hot,” Jeno rolled his eyes, opening a bag of snacks and taking a handful of bright orange chips.

“I don’t think I had ever seen food this colour,” Jaemin relaxed in the seat, eyes on the hotel and its surroundings. A client arrived, but nothing felt out of place. People were eating in the restaurant with wide bay windows, and Jaemin could see the clerk busy on the phone.

“Me neither, but it tastes fucking good,” Jeno seemed to enjoy his snack, handing Jaemin some chips. The brunette refused. “You became so ungrateful. Back in the days, we would have died for anything to eat,” he mocked Jaemin, who gasped.

“Ungrateful? Watch your words,” he hissed, watching Jeno stuff his face anyways, his fingers tainted in orange flakes.

“Now who’s the one not respecting the truce?” Jeno snickered, while the brunette rolled his eyes. This was going to be a long night.

Around four in the morning, they received a call from Minhyung, telling them that something was off with the backside of the building. Jeno had been half asleep, probably tired from the digestion of his little feast when Jaemin took the call. He pushed Jeno’s bare shoulder, gesturing him to leave the car.

“Minhyung saw something at the back of the hotel,” he told Jeno, who put his shirt back and tucked his handgun in his back of his jeans before following Jaemin. They tried to walk casually, without bringing attention to themselves, but the brunette knew that they might not succeed here. Something was definitely off and Minhyung just got them the confirmation that they had been right about the odd situation.

They reached the car Donghyuck and Minhyung had been in and it felt strange to see the other agents in such a normal setting. Jaemin could see some sweat dripping on their foreheads too.

“We saw them on the fourth floor, going up and down again. One looked at us, I’m sure of it,” Minhyung explained, closing the doors of the car once Jaemin and Jeno were inside.

“Shit,” Jaemin muttered, eyeing the curtains of said floor. If the gang members knew they were here for them, this could probably explain why everything has been so strange. “This might be an ambush,” he added, recalling the times in Bangkok. A quick glance at Jeno made him realize his partner recalled the same thing.

“We should call the centre,” Donghyuck said, and everyone nodded. “We have already warned the others, but told them to stay positioned,” he added. Minhyung handed him the phone, and Donghyuck dialled the number given to them.

Jaemin leaned on the backseat, eyeing how Jeno seemed deep in thoughts. His black hair was slightly wet because of the sweat, and his face was gleaming. For a second, Jaemin let his mind wander about how he looked really attractive tonight before Jeno turned to him and caught his eyes. They stayed like this for less than a second, their eye contact feeling like an electric shock, paralyzing them in their seats.

Jaemin broke the eye contact first, his cheeks burning hot. For the first time in his life, he felt embarrassed.

Donghyuck then broke out the tension by ending the call and turned around.

“The supervisors say that we have to finish the mission whatever we think is happening and that we are overreacting,” he sighed.

“They are out of their mind,” Jeno hissed, eyeing the very silent neighbourhood.

“They trained us to be aware of everything, but when we find something dangerous we’re the ones overreacting?” Minhyung was pissed and threw his fist on the side of the wheel.

“There’s nothing to gain from whining. Let’s go finish this off quickly before it gets out of hand,” Jaemin said with a flat tone, taking his handgun out of his jeans and getting off the car. The rest eventually got off too, following the brunette. Donghyuck called the rest of the agents with the phone.

“You’re taking the front door and we’re entering from the back. The goal is to arrive on the fourth floor without too much fuss,” Donghyuck explained with a low voice and handed the phone back to Minhyung once he was done.

The interior of the hotel was exceptionally calm too. From the backside, the four males arrived at the staircase easily, without anyone caring about them.

“I think someone else saw us,” Jeno whispered to Jaemin, as Donghyuck and Minhyung had gone first in the staircase. Jaemin gasped, looking around and seeing no one. “Something is wrong,” he added, his eyebrows furrowed. Jaemin could feel his heart beat fast, too fast because of the adrenalin. They saw other agents reach the staircase with them, and in a matter of seconds, the ten agents of the mission were quietly going up the fourth floor.

The corridor of the fourth floor was empty, and no sound could be heard if not for the light steps of the ten agents. They knew the gang occupied every room of the floor; normally they would have taken time to figure this out but they didn’t have time to do so.

Donghyuck moved to the first door, and soon enough everyone dispatched to the numerous room doors of the floor. Jaemin decided to stay to the door closer the stairs, in case some gang members decided to ambush them from there. He loaded his gun and stood close to the wall.

Donghyuck suddenly burst the door open, and everyone did so with their own assigned door. In a matter of seconds, the whole gang should have been out.

However, there was nobody in any of the rooms.

Jaemin just had the time to glance anxiously at Jeno, right before the numerous bombs went off and the whole building collapsed.

-

Jaemin wondered if he was in hell.

When he opened his eyes, he was faced with smoke and debris. Red painted the only remains of the walls, and when Jaemin realized it was blood, he felt his breath hitch.

It had been a trap. The gang knew they had been monitoring them, and they fell for it. They had felt something was off, but the centre had forced them to go. And now, Jaemin wondered if anyone else was alive.

The brunette had to think fast. The gang would probably come to execute the ones who had not been directly killed by the bomb, and he had to evacuate as soon as he could.

Jaemin realized he was bleeding, blood dripping on his lips from his ears and temples. His whole body felt paralyzed, and he was sure he had lost part of his hearing capacity. His ears were buzzing painfully.

He realized he had been lucky, very lucky, as he had not been stabbed by any material during the collapse of the building or crushed by concrete. The brunette crawled in search of the rest of the agents, and a phone to contact the centre. They had to come and get them.

Jaemin got a glimpse of feet, and when he managed to reach the body, he discovered it had been cut in two. Next to him was the head of another agent, a girl Jaemin didn’t really know. A scream left his mouth involuntarily, the sight making him shake. He did not even dare to look out for what had happened to the other agents.

He stayed there, a few tears running on his cheeks. The brunette’s whole body felt numb and the smoke made it hard for him to breathe. He knew the gang would probably come anytime soon, and so be it. He had no reason to be the only survivor of the explosion; he wasn’t even a good person. He had pushed Donghyuck, Minhyung and Jeno to go into this ambush and die dismembered.

Guilt invaded him when he thought about the three males, and how cruel this death was. He considered Minhyung and Donghyuck as his long term friends, who had never tried to stab Jaemin in the back because of his skills as an agent, He also thought about Jeno, and how he had unfairly hated him just because he was better than him at everything he did. He had never taken the chance to really understand him, and when he finally did, the brunette encountered a rather funny and genuinely kind male.

They did not deserve to die like this.

This thought broke Jaemin’s heart.

However, his rational self took over his repressed sensitive heart. The two bodies next to him might be exceptional, and perhaps the seven other agents were just unconscious. Jaemin knew this thought was very delusional, and probably the result of his brain trying to rationalize the absurdity of the situation, but he had to make sure.

He got on all fours, because of his aching body, the smoke making it unbearable to see and the fear of being seen by the gang members, and tried to see if anyone was still moving.

Jaemin encountered yet other dead bodies, unrecognizable because of the explosion. Pure fear invaded his veins, and he gasped when he felt a hand on his wrist.

He turned around, terrified, and felt his heart explode when he saw Jeno was sitting here, smoke on his face but his eyes opened and his heart beating.

Jaemin embraced Jeno’s body in a swift movement. His body was hot and the brunette felt Jeno’s arms wrapping around his body too. Jaemin couldn’t believe it and felt his heart burst of happiness. They both remained like this for what felt like an eternity, before glancing at each other’s eyes. Jeno’s brow bone was bleeding heavily and he had a very deep cut on his thigh, but he was alive, safe and sound.

They had a hard time breathing because of the smoke, their chests rising up painfully.

“I … There must be others alive,” Jaemin managed to say, his voice extremely raspy because of smoke invading his lungs. Jeno nodded. “I won’t leave you here, Jen, I promise,” the brunette said, glancing straight in his partner’s eyes. He didn’t feel that much intimidated, suddenly.

Jaemin continued to crawl in search of other bodies, and after finding two other dead bodies, he found Donghyuck’s. He felt fear rise when he saw that his eyes were closed, but with a few blows on his cheeks, Donghyuck woke up, coughing up smoke and a bit of blood.

“I’m here,” he said, holding Donghyuck’s hand tight. The tanned male seemed very confused, but after a few moments, he understood what had happened. Donghyuck wasn’t wounded, and they both continued to look for other agents.

Jaemin heard Donghyuck gasp from the distance, and when he joined him, he realized with joy he had found Minhyung. He was alive, but his eye was bleeding bloody tears. When Jaemin came closer, he realized his eye had burst open. Minhyung was screeching in pain, his hands scrapped because of the concrete, and was panicking because he couldn’t see with his eye.

“You’re going to be fine,” Donghyuck reassured him, eyeing from afar the last body, unrecognizable as well.

“We need to leave,” Jaemin muttered, and Donghyuck nodded. He helped Minhyung to get up, the later screaming in pain when the tanned male took his hands to make him stand. Jaemin showed them the way to the exit and rushed to Jeno’s side.

He found the later laying against a piece of concrete, his hand pressing on his opened thigh. When he saw Jaemin come for him, a small smile grew on his face.

“Mark and Haechan are alive. The rest…” Jaemin didn’t have to finish the sentence for Jeno to understand. The brunette gave his hands to Jeno and carried the male’s weight with difficulty to get him up. Jeno winced in pain when he felt gravity on his wounded thigh, and Jaemin placed his hand on the male’s waist, indicating him to grab his shoulder.

They reached the exit with difficulty and found Minhyung and Donghyuck on the side. Minhyung was screaming in pain, his eye still crying blood, while Donghyuck had found the phone.

He sounded extremely angered when he contacted the centre, and Jaemin helped Jeno sit next to Minhyung, placing his hand on his partner’s thigh to reduce the bleeding.

“They literally insulted me for this failed mission,” Donghyuck’s anger was visible, “and told us to manage it ourselves as a punishment,” he went on. Jaemin felt his heart drop. With two injured agents, the reasoning of the centre was incomprehensible.

“Let’s go then before the gang arrives in retaliation,” Jaemin said. He pointed to the car Jeno and he had been waiting in, a couple of meters away.

He helped Jeno out once more, eyeing how blood from his partner’s wound had begun to stop running down his leg. Jeno handed Donghyuck the car keys, the later taking the driver’s seat. Jaemin helped Minhyung and Jeno enter the car and sat in the middle seat when Donghyuck started the engine.

Jaemin glanced at Minhyung’s eye and realized he might not see again. The male freaked out the entire trip, crying and screaming in pain, while Jaemin could do nothing about his pain for the moment. After half an hour, Minhyung hadn’t stopped screeching in pain.

“Haechan, stop me at the nearest pharmacy,” Jaemin told Donghyuck, who nodded. Minhyung could die from an eye infection, and judging from his state, it was wiser to get some medical material to treat his injury. They didn’t know what would happen to them in the next hours, so they had to be smart and use the time they were not in evident danger to gather as much survival goods as they could.

Jaemin took the handgun from Jeno’s jeans, having lost his in the explosion. His partner glanced at him, guessing what he was about to do.

Jaemin jumped out of the car as soon as Donghyuck stopped him at the first pharmacy he saw. The brunette had never been keen on attacking innocent people, but desperate times called desperate measures.

The clients of the pharmacy barely had time to register that a skinny, bleeding male had just entered the shop, a handgun in his hand that Jaemin shot two bullets at the ceiling, making everyone scream. He ran to the counter and aimed his gun at the clerk. He shouted at her the material he needed. The woman didn’t seem to want to move, probably too frightened by the male in front of her.

“Hurry before I kill you,” Jaemin hissed in Spanish, arming his gun. The woman rushed around the pharmacy and the shelves, and after a few minutes, she came back with more stuff that Jaemin had asked. “Put it all in a bag,” he told her. From the side, Jaemin could see a terrified teen was on the phone, probably calling the police. He had no choice but shoot her hand, praying that his shooting skills did not abandon him. The bullet went through the hand and the phone exploded, the teen screeching in pain in harmony with the other clients cries for help, fearing for their lives.

Jaemin grabbed the bag he was given and rushed out the pharmacy, running to find the car parked a little further. When he got in, he could see some relief on Donghyuck and Jeno’s faces.

“Let’s go to a motel, far from here,” Jaemin said, and Donghyuck nodded, the engine roaring as the car left.

Jaemin tried to cure Minhyung as fast as he could, seeing how indeed, Minhyung would probably never recover sight from his left eye. The brunette tried to reduce the damage as much as he could, and he reassured Minhyung saying it was nothing, and he would recover. He knew the male was very anxious, the explosion had made him snap out of his agent posture, and telling him he would be blind from an eye wasn’t the smartest thing to do. Donghyuck and Jeno seemed to agree with Jaemin, as no one contradicted him.

The pharmacist had given him some morphine, which he injected in Minhyung’s veins to calm him down. It worked almost instantly, and the male drifted to a well-deserved sleep after Jaemin had been done with his bandage. Donghyuck kept on driving, bringing them as close as possible to a motel next to the airport.

“Do you want some?” Jaemin turned to Jeno with the needle filled with morphine. Jeno had been quiet during the entire ride, but the brunette knew his wound was deep and he must have been in quite some pain, as much as it had stopped bleeding.

Jeno nodded and gave his arm to Jaemin who placed his fingers on his elbow’s hollow, feeling a thick vein there. He inserted the needle, being careful not to give Jeno too much product, as it would make him completely knocked out if he did so.

“Thanks,” Jeno whispered when Jaemin was done, eying the brunette place a compress on his thigh and wrap the wound up so it wouldn’t be exposed to the air, at least for the rest of the journey. Jaemin’s movements were soft, and soon, Jeno forgot about the pain in his leg.

“He’s finally sleeping,” he told Donghyuck when the latter asked about Minhyung. Donghyuck gestured to his own eye, and Jaemin shook his head. The tanned male quickly understood a solemn look on his face.

The brunette eyed how Jeno had leaned against the window, resting after the incident. Jaemin still couldn’t believe what had happened, how the centre had offered no help, and how six agents had encountered nothing but death in the explosion. The centre had shown no empathy towards this, and Jaemin knew he’d bear the consequences of the explosion and the images of the ones he had trained with dismembered for the rest of his life.

Donghyuck found a cheap and quite shady motel a few miles from the airport, the sound of airplanes taking off shaking the walls of the small room they paid for. Nobody seemed surprised to see two rather valid males with blood on their hands and their faces and two wounded ones enter the motel. Jaemin guessed they must have seen worse.

The room smelled like sex and sweat, and they put Minhyung in the bed immediately, the male dozing off again as soon as his body landed on the mattress. Donghyuck went to the bathroom to clean his face and his hands, coming out quite clean, as if nothing had happened before.

“There is an internet café right next to the motel. I’m going to book our flights back home since we have to manage on our own. I’ll be back in less than an hour,” Donghyuck said with determination, and both Jaemin and Jeno nodded. Jaemin handed him the only handgun they had and locked the door after the tanned male left. He eyed him walk down the streets from the window of the room, and then closed the curtains tight.

The brunette eyed Minhyung sleeping peacefully in the bed, his bandage slightly drenched with blood. Minhyung would be devastated when he’d get he would never see again from his eye. Jaemin then shifted to see Jeno sitting on the sofa, the bandage soaked with blood and dirt particles from the explosion.

“Let’s get this wound clean,” Jaemin gestured to Jeno, handing him his arm so he could lean on it to reach the bathroom. They both sat on the cold floor.

Jaemin took the soaked compress off and eyed the dirty wound. It was deep and looked extremely painful, the skin puffed from the shock. Jaemin ripped a bit more the part of Jeno’s jeans close to the wound, and put some alcohol on another clean compress.

“It’s going to hurt a bit,” he said, eyeing Jeno nod and wince in pain as soon as Jaemin put the compress on the open wound. He grabbed the brunette’s hand, squeezing it in pain while Jaemin tried his best to work fast, cleaning away most of the dirt and the dried blood. He managed to clean a majority of the wound and took out the tweezers he had gotten from the pharmacy to grab the pieces of concrete and metal within the wound. Jeno’s hand clenched his’, and in a matter of a few minutes, the wound was cleaned up. 

Jeno’s traits relaxed, as he let Jaemin’s hand free. The brunette grabbed the medical thread and a needle to sew the wound up.

“I still can’t believe what happened,” Jeno said, his voice raspy. Jaemin sighed, starting to sew at a slow rhythm to make sure he didn’t mess up. “And how the centre abandoned us.”

“They must have been furious,” Jaemin tried to rationalize, trying his best to stitch the wound up as nicely as he could. Fresh blood had started to drip on his hands, but it would soon be over.

“Good for them,” Jeno seemed pissed. Jaemin must admit he agreed with his partner, but he also knew that the centre knew better than they did, and they must have had their reasons to act the way they did. “We could have avoided this carnage pretty easily,” Jeno continued.

“We don’t have all the information to understand what really went on,” Jaemin eventually argued, having focused for long minutes on the wound.

“Why do you always defend them?” Jeno’s tone was accusing and Jaemin stopped a moment to glance at the male. Their faces were only a few centimetres away.

“And why don’t you defend them?” Jaemin retorted, looking straight in Jeno’s eyes. He could see his dark pupils a well as blood vessels, a sign of extreme exhaustion and the shock of earlier.

“Because I don’t owe them anything,” Jeno was harsh when he answered. It left Jaemin silent for a long moment. He had not known his partner hated their centre that much. He had always seen Jeno comply in silence, being quite self-absorbed in the numerous praises he had always gotten from the supervisors.

“You know these words can be considered as treason, right?” Jaemin answered softly, going back to sewing the last centimetres of the wound.

“Are you going to sell me out, then?” Jeno raised one eyebrow, wincing when Jaemin tightened the thread and cleaned the now stitched wound.

“Do you think I’d be treating your wound if I knew they’re going to execute you as soon as we land home?” Jaemin responded, eyeing the results and being satisfied with his job.

They remained in the bathroom in silence for long minutes, until Jeno took one compress and soaked it with water. Jaemin eyed him with a questioning look.

“Your face is full of blood,” Jeno said, eyeing Jaemin’s surprised eyes and how he got up to face the mirror. A gasp left his mouth when he saw that, indeed, his face and some of his hair strands were soaked with blood, his eyelashes were stuck together because of the red liquid. He looked completely crazy, and it was no wonder the people in the pharmacy had been so terrified.

“I can do it,” Jaemin said when he sat back next to Jeno who shook his head and went ahead to clean Jaemin’s face. The brunette stood there, impassible, feeling Jeno work the compress on his eyes, nose, lips and temple. The last part hurt the most because it was the wound at the origin of the blood.

“Thank you for helping me out, earlier. You could have left me to die,” Jeno said with a flat tone, being weirdly gentle on Jaemin’s face. He was so close to him that he could feel his partner’s breath on his cheeks.

“I would never have left you out there,” Jaemin said neutrally, his eyes closed as Jeno worked his way to clean his eyelashes. When he opened them up, he found the male starring at him. “What is it?” his voice came out as a mutter.

Jeno’s eyes were hypnotizing to Jaemin, and he lost himself in them, in such way that he didn’t realize right away that Jeno’s lips were on his. It took less than a second for Jaemin to feel the warmth on his lips, and close his eyes, enjoying the contact as much as he felt his heart clench.

His partner’s lips were hot, but a metallic taste invaded Jaemin’s mouth when he felt Jeno’s tongue touch his. He felt Jeno’s hand grab his cheeks, and Jaemin placed his hand on top of his partner’s, intertwining their fingers. The kiss was passionate, even if terribly slow, and Jaemin wasn’t sure if he still had any control over himself.

Jeno’s smell was intoxicating, even if he also smelt like blood and concrete. The brunette found himself wanting more, but his mind burst awake, slating that he shouldn’t be doing this. This was against everything he had been trained for.

They eventually broke the kiss, their lungs begging for air, and Jeno and Jaemin found themselves staring at each other’s eyes for what felt like an eternity. There was so much vulnerability and uncertainty in this moment, and it shook the two males to the core.

“I’ll … I’ll check up on Minhyung,” Jaemin escaped Jeno’s reach and the power he had over him, feeling his heart clench more and his mind lose it at each second that went on.

Minhyung was still sleeping, and Jaemin felt suddenly very dumb, hearing Jeno close the door of the bathroom, probably to clean himself up.

Jaemin didn’t know how much time he spent, on the edge of the bed, his mind troubled and his heart full. He remembered getting his mind to function normally when he heard a soft knock on the door. The brunette eyed Donghyuck enter.

“We’re flying tomorrow at 10,” he said, running a hand in his dark brown hair.

“Great,” Jaemin answered, eyeing the food Donghyuck had brought back for them all. He handed Jaemin some ready meal. “I’m good,” the brunette lied, brushing the food away and heading to the corner of the room, sitting cross-legged.

“Are you alright?” Donghyuck seemed genuinely concerned when he saw how pale Jaemin was and how troubled he looked.

“Of course,” he lied again, giving Donghyuck his best commercial smile. It reassured the tanned male who went to eat on the sofa.


End file.
